


ignis aurum probat

by toromeo (ald0us)



Category: Shadowhunters (TV), The Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare
Genre: D/s undertones, M/M, cigarette play
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-31
Updated: 2017-07-31
Packaged: 2018-12-09 09:46:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11666637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ald0us/pseuds/toromeo
Summary: Fire tests gold.Sebastian and Jace play with fire.





	ignis aurum probat

**Author's Note:**

> Loosely set around "The Fair Folk" (2x14 if memory serves).

“I didn’t know you smoked,” Jace said, propping himself up on his elbow. Sebastian lay next to him, Jace’s arm thrown over his chest.

“I don’t.” Sebastian’s dark eyes sparkled with mischief. He held the cigarette delicately between two fingers and struck a match with a swift, clever motion, then held the match to the cigarette’s end. When he drew the flame away, a soft glow was visible at its end. He watched the flame flicker for a few moments then pinched it out. “Do you ever like to play with fire?”

“Sometimes,” Jace said, reaching out to run his fingers lightly through Sebastian’s hair. One of the biggest surprises of getting to know him—physically—was how starved for touch he seemed to be. Even now, he leaned into the touch as if drinking it up. “I mean, little things. I haven’t gone out and committed arson, if that’s what you’re asking. Is this the part of the conversation where I learn about your secret desire to burn down an old folks’ home?”

“Mmm, I prefer to dream big,” Sebastian replied. He had a smile in his voice. “Maybe a hospital? Or Times square.”

“I knew I liked you for a reason.” Jace cupped a hand behind his neck and pulled him in for a languid, open-mouthed kiss. His lips were chapped but plush and his mouth silky, his skin warm against Jace’s. “So if you don’t smoke, what’s the cigarette for?”

Sebastian’s lips curled upwards in a lazy, almost dangerous smile. “Playing with fire, of course.” He held it up between their chests, where his body was stretched out against Jace’s, skin pale in the low light. “Do you want to try?”

Jace raised an eyebrow. “You mean hold it to my skin?”

Sebastian’s smile curved just a little more. “No. To mine.” His eyes met Jace’s, just hard enough to be a challenge.

“And you enjoy it?” Jace couldn’t resist a challenge, even if he was uncertain. Sebastian’s eyes didn’t leave his as he put the cigarette in Jace’s fingers. It was smooth and papery to the touch, and slightly warm. “Where...where should I do it?”

“Where do you want to do it?” Sebastian’s eyes were mischievous. He dipped in closer, his breath tickling Jace’s cheek, and took Jace’s free hand and slid it over the smooth skin of his hipbone. It was sharp and jutted out like his high, proud cheekbones. “Somewhere sensitive.” Then the softer skin of his thigh, and Jace pressed into it with his fingers.

“Here.” Sebastian’s voice was silky. He shifted languidly onto his back and Jace rolled over, baring the creamy skin of Sebastian’s inner thigh. Jace hesitated, the cigarette hot and light in his hand. Sebastian’s hand curled around Jace’s, fingers gripping his own; then he pressed the cigarette firmly to his own skin.

Sebastian gasped softly as if the breath had been knocked from him and Jace watched in sick fascination as his milky skin sizzled and reddened around the burn. Jace pulled his hand away and Sebastian’s head tilted back, his tensed muscles going slack.

“Was—was that okay?” Jace asked, trying not to sound anxious, as if he’d totally done anything like this before. A small, red-angry burn raised on Sebastian’s skin, dusted with black and grey ash.

“That was good,” Sebastian said, his voice husky. Jace could feel the tiny tremors in the muscle of his leg, the hungry heat that rolled off him in intangible waves. He licked his lips. “Do it again.”

Jace dutifully pressed the cigarette back to his skin, letting it dig in to Sebastian’s flesh. A wordless _ahh_ losed from his lips and his hips jerked, muscles tensing; when Jace pulled the little brand away Sebastian’s chest was rising and falling rapidly.

“Again,” Sebastian panted. “Again, Jace, please."

Jace complied, biting a kiss to Sebastian’s hipbone as he pushed the cigarette into his skin, trailing ash over the soft flesh. He drank in Sebastian’s moans, breathy and spontaneous—Jace wasn’t sure how he got off on this, but Jace wasn’t going to deny it there was something perversely sexy about it. And it revealed another side of Sebastian—a moaning and begging, needy, side—as well as something new and sharp in himself.

“You like that?” Jace asked, pulling the nearly stubbed-out cigarette away. He crawled over Sebastian’s shallowly heaving chest, the palms of Jace’s hands digging into Sebastian’s body. Sebastian pulled him in as Jace scraped his teeth over his collarbone, grabbing at Jace’s shoulders and smearing salt and stinging sweat into the shallow cuts raked into Jace’s back.

Sebastian groaned out wordless assent, curling his abused thighs around Jace’s waist. “Put it out on me,” he said, in the pleading way one might beg to be kissed or, if you were really wild, fucked.

Jace held the last stubs of the cigarette to Sebastian’s side, somewhere over his second or third rib, and Sebastian’s spine arched under him as the heat went out from under Jace’s fingers. Then, only once it was ash Sebastian relaxed, his hardened body softening. Jace sank down next to him, allowing Sebastian to curl against his side.

Jace traced his _deflect_ rune idly with his fingers, feeling Sebastian’s soft breathing and quick heartbeat slow against his shoulder. The lamplight caught the highlights of his hair, shadow pooling under his cheekbones and over the bridge of his nose.

“Do you need an _iratze_?” Jace asked, pushing the light gold fringe from Sebastian’s forehead. Sebastian didn’t seem to be bothered much by pain, but burns to sensitive skin were different from bites and scratches, and Jace’s stele was nearby in his pocket on the floor.

“No,” he said, with his strange, almost mysterious smile. “I’m fine, thank you.”

“Okay.” Jace watched as Sebastian’s long, almost translucent lashes dipped towards his cheeks as his breathing slowed—he got so...cuddly and sleepy after any prolonged sexual activity. Jace hadn’t expected him to be the touchy sort, and definitely hadn’t expected him to be so, well, kinky, either. It was like he had a direct link to Jace’s internet history, or his brain, or something. It was mildly unnerving.

Still, after the disastrous kiss in the Seelie Court and his possibly ill-conceived thing with Maia (which had been a mutual thing. She hadn’t dumped him. Jace didn’t get dumped), it was somewhat refreshing to be with someone who actually liked him.

Jace did not understand Sebastian Verlac, and that troubled him. The old urge to _always watch your back, trust no one_ was ever-present, like a bad memory—apparently, he couldn't even have a casual relationship without his father being there to fuck it up.

Sebastian would be different, Jace decided. Isabelle knew Sebastian, and Isabelle trusted him, and that would be good enough for Jace. He was a transfer from the London Institute, Aline Penhallow's cousin, a Verlac, not some revenant from his past come to destroy what fragile peace Jace had found. The dark suspicion, always lingering like smoke from a long-gone fire, was Jace's alone.

Sebastian's eyes opened just briefly, dark and unknowable, and he smiled.

 


End file.
